DEATH POOL FOR DYING   I am right now hiding on a different planet from something I don’t know on a different planet. I sleep underneath the bed to pretend I’m in a coffin and that you are looking for me. You are so sad without me that you become a paper swan. A nun once sat next to me on a crashing plane and prayed that I wouldn’t die, and when I didn’t die, I had to eat her. We think the sun is at its most beautiful when it is going down, going away, but it’s not actually doing either of those things. I get myself in face-down position. Look, the sea is so see-through and there are no waves in the sea. On the side of the sea, my dad is saving me with his pants on.   *** This is the poem, and the notes I wrote for the poem, for the Pocket Notes event, Pocket Tones/Exile Water, that is going to happen on Friday Night (I just told you about it in that last post). This isn’t what I have in Pocket Notes #2—I wrote this just for Friday night.

DEATH POOL FOR DYING

 

I am right now hiding on a different planet from something I don’t know on a different planet. I sleep underneath the bed to pretend I’m in a coffin and that you are looking for me. You are so sad without me that you become a paper swan. A nun once sat next to me on a crashing plane and prayed that I wouldn’t die, and when I didn’t die, I had to eat her. We think the sun is at its most beautiful when it is going down, going away, but it’s not actually doing either of those things. I get myself in face-down position. Look, the sea is so see-through and there are no waves in the sea. On the side of the sea, my dad is saving me with his pants on.

 

***

This is the poem, and the notes I wrote for the poem, for the Pocket Notes event, Pocket Tones/Exile Water, that is going to happen on Friday Night (I just told you about it in that last post). This isn’t what I have in Pocket Notes #2—I wrote this just for Friday night.

This Friday night, I’m going to participate in the Pocket Notes happening/gathering/sound night to help the editors, Stacey Tran and Travis Meyer, celebrate the release of their second issue of Pocket Notes, of which I’m a contributor. It’ll be at the IPRC at 7:30.  If you wanna go you should just go.

This Friday night, I’m going to participate in the Pocket Notes happening/gathering/sound night to help the editors, Stacey Tran and Travis Meyer, celebrate the release of their second issue of Pocket Notes, of which I’m a contributor. It’ll be at the IPRC at 7:30.  If you wanna go you should just go.

THE PERSON OF THE WEEK, #5: HAJARA QUINN Hajara Quinn is 5’6”. It’s pronounced HaJARa, so quit saying it wrong. You can call her Haji (HA-jee). That’s what I do. She wishes her name were Plum or Ponette though. I like those names a lot too, but those aren’t her names. In boarding school in Massachusettes, other kids called her Dodger, but this isn’t boarding school in Massachusetts anymore, people, so grow up. I first met Haji because she was a student in one of my poetry workshops at Crow Arts Manor. And then she took another one too. For one of those workshops I told everybody that they had to crawl in and out of the room’s window to come to and to leave class. She was one of the ones who did it. There were so many good poets in that workshop (here’s another one). I liked Haji at first because her poems were really good and she had a good laugh. She’s not really capable of bullshitting either. Also, she was the very first person in the world, besides me, to have a copy of Heather Christle’s The Trees The Trees because she wanted it so bad and kept asking about it before it was ever out. She’s like that with poetry books. She likes some of them so hard. Some of our first conversations were about how good Factory Hollow’s books are, for example, and she let me borrow her Mark Leidner’s Beauty Was The Case That They Gave Me, which was probably kept under her pillow every night before that. Anyway, this is especially cool because now she has a chapbook called Unnaysayer from Flying Object which is the organization/storefront the does Factory Hollow. You should buy that for $6, and you can read other poems of hers at Ilk, Kill Author, and in the next issue of Sixth Finch. She is an MFA poetry student at Cornell. She is a tremendously important and vital member of the Octopus Books team. Haji is an assistant editor, and has been for about two years now. Together we’re currently editing Bianca Stone’s forthcoming Tin House/Octopus Books book, Someone Else’s Wedding Vows. I really like editing poems with her. Also, Haji is the entirety of our shipping department. If you’ve ordered a book through our website in the past two years, Haji shipped it. She’s been shipping books from Ithaca. It’s cool that we have a shipping department on the other side of the country. I would guess Haji has single-handedly shipped about 1000 books. She once had a summer job handing out life jackets. One time she was in a canoe that capsized in the middle of a lake and sank. She took off her sweater and that sank. She thought maybe she’d sink too. But at this point she hasn’t. Oh, the important part of that story is that she wasn’t wearing a life jacket. Together with her boyfriend, Ben, we went to the Wild Ones show at Mississippi Studios this week. Also just this week, Haji got a pedicure and has a new toenail color, she completed her first year of grad school, and has moved back to Portland for the summer. So, for these three reasons and more, Hajara Quinn is this week’s The Lovely Arc’s The Person of the Week. Buy Unnaysayer from Flying Object here. Please submit your suggestions for next week’s The Lovely Arc’s The Person of the Week to me via email.

THE PERSON OF THE WEEK, #5: HAJARA QUINN


Hajara Quinn is 5’6”. It’s pronounced HaJARa, so quit saying it wrong. You can call her Haji (HA-jee). That’s what I do. She wishes her name were Plum or Ponette though. I like those names a lot too, but those aren’t her names. In boarding school in Massachusettes, other kids called her Dodger, but this isn’t boarding school in Massachusetts anymore, people, so grow up. I first met Haji because she was a student in one of my poetry workshops at Crow Arts Manor. And then she took another one too. For one of those workshops I told everybody that they had to crawl in and out of the room’s window to come to and to leave class. She was one of the ones who did it. There were so many good poets in that workshop (here’s another one). I liked Haji at first because her poems were really good and she had a good laugh. She’s not really capable of bullshitting either. Also, she was the very first person in the world, besides me, to have a copy of Heather Christle’s The Trees The Trees because she wanted it so bad and kept asking about it before it was ever out. She’s like that with poetry books. She likes some of them so hard. Some of our first conversations were about how good Factory Hollow’s books are, for example, and she let me borrow her Mark Leidner’s Beauty Was The Case That They Gave Me, which was probably kept under her pillow every night before that. Anyway, this is especially cool because now she has a chapbook called Unnaysayer from Flying Object which is the organization/storefront the does Factory Hollow. You should buy that for $6, and you can read other poems of hers at Ilk, Kill Author, and in the next issue of Sixth Finch. She is an MFA poetry student at Cornell. She is a tremendously important and vital member of the Octopus Books team. Haji is an assistant editor, and has been for about two years now. Together we’re currently editing Bianca Stone’s forthcoming Tin House/Octopus Books book, Someone Else’s Wedding Vows. I really like editing poems with her. Also, Haji is the entirety of our shipping department. If you’ve ordered a book through our website in the past two years, Haji shipped it. She’s been shipping books from Ithaca. It’s cool that we have a shipping department on the other side of the country. I would guess Haji has single-handedly shipped about 1000 books. She once had a summer job handing out life jackets. One time she was in a canoe that capsized in the middle of a lake and sank. She took off her sweater and that sank. She thought maybe she’d sink too. But at this point she hasn’t. Oh, the important part of that story is that she wasn’t wearing a life jacket. Together with her boyfriend, Ben, we went to the Wild Ones show at Mississippi Studios this week. Also just this week, Haji got a pedicure and has a new toenail color, she completed her first year of grad school, and has moved back to Portland for the summer. So, for these three reasons and more, Hajara Quinn is this week’s The Lovely Arc’s The Person of the Week.


Buy Unnaysayer from Flying Object here.

Please submit your suggestions for next week’s The Lovely Arc’s The Person of the Week to me via email.

Three policemen climb over a fence. I am dead. I am on the ground. I am pretty in a white dress. We live between getting up when someone is at the door, and not getting up when someone is at the door. A bed of sleepy women move like cats. On the other side of the fog, you are naked in a vat. You are a memory of mine being erased. So this is my death, not yours. Someone is at the door.

Happy National Draw Your Mom’s Face Day, Mom! I love and drew you.

Happy National Draw Your Mom’s Face Day, Mom! I love and drew you.

I have a penpal named Chloe, the 8 year old daughter of my good friend, Zack. We write back and forth about poetry mostly. Because she is such an amazing poet, I asked her to be one of the collaborators of this long poem I’ve been slowly working on called ASTEROID, which is, essentially, a collaboration with many people I know in which I ask them to give me a line or two with the word “space” in it, and then I take it from there. This is Chloe’s contribution to that collaboration. She is one of my favorite poets right now.

I have a penpal named Chloe, the 8 year old daughter of my good friend, Zack. We write back and forth about poetry mostly. Because she is such an amazing poet, I asked her to be one of the collaborators of this long poem I’ve been slowly working on called ASTEROID, which is, essentially, a collaboration with many people I know in which I ask them to give me a line or two with the word “space” in it, and then I take it from there. This is Chloe’s contribution to that collaboration. She is one of my favorite poets right now.

THE PERSON OF THE WEEK, #4: DASHA SHLEYEVA Dasha Shleyeva is 5’4” and a half. This week I sat at a table twice out on the front patio of the Bye and Bye with Dasha drawing her face, and a scuba man and some other people at other tables (I think I am going to draw the Person of the Week each week from here on out). The first time I used her color pencils, because I didn’t have any, and I had so much fun that I went to buy my own color pencils and then asked her if she wanted to meet up at the same table and draw again a few days later so we did. The first time I met Dasha, she was working as a barista at 26 Cafe. We started talking about poetry and she said she was then reading Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, and I was like OMG because I actually had Bluets in my bag at that exact time. I showed her and we were both like OMG! Of all the books! One time when I was home during winter break my mom and I were looking at my mom’s Facebook page together, and a Frontier Airlines ad on the side panel had Dasha’s face on it, like she was a very satisfied customer in some plane seat, with bright blue sky and clouds behind her. I told my mom casually that that was my friend Dasha, but I don’t think she really believed me. Or maybe it was Alaska Airlines. Dasha has also been a mummy on a Disney show, a girl scout on Mad TV, Amanda Bynes’ double on All That and a crazy fan extra on a Lindsay Lohan music video. Dasha is a very talented musician too, like way more talented than Lindsay Lohan. She plays bass for Brainstorm, and has been touring around the country with them lately. You can watch them play and talk about their music here. Dasha also has her own solo music projects, and she plays as Dashenka. You should check out her songs on her soundcloud page Dashenka Sings. Maybe you’ll want to watch her play at Laurelthirst Pub at 9:30 tomorrow night, May 9. Or if you miss that you can watch her play on May 31st at the Old Church downtown with a harpist and an upright bassist opening for Amento Abiento for Kind Arts Benefit for Low Income Seniors and Adults with Disabilities. She’ll be donating some of her prints for the silent auction. Oh, her prints! She is a visual artist too. You should check out some of her illustrations here on her website Dasha Draws. She has some of her prints for sale now around town at Tender Loving Empire, Townshend’s Tea House on Alberta, Compound Gallery, Wanderlust Vintage, and she will have a summer art show going up in July at Back Talk. Also THIS WEEK she made her first brass ring and bracelet at The Make House with Lauren of Revere Metals as her magical master teacher, she surfed some waves at Short Sands, and translated her first poem from English to Russian (which happens to be a poem of mine from Fjords called “What Would Kill Me”). Dasha was born in Moscow and lived there until she was 9 and is pretty much Russian-American, so she knows how to speak Russian. She is really good at cartwheels and does them a lot, mostly in hallways and movie theater lobbies. Her karaoke song is “It’s Oh So Quiet” by Bjork. She has a swan tattoo on her arm that makes me think of Bjork, but I’ve never asked her about that really. She apparently only drinks old man drinks like Sazeracs, Old Fashioneds, or a Whiskey soda with bitters and a lime, but I saw her drink a Rainier a few days ago. Anyway, because all of these things, especially because she has a solo show at Laurelthirst tomorrow, Dasha is this week’s Person of the Week. Because Dasha spent a lot of time on the road with Brainstorm, she had to leave her job and is now looking for another in town. She’s up for barbacking, food service, music venue stuff, translating, nannying, restaurant or illustrative/art stuff. You should hit her up if you know of something.  Please submit your suggestions for next week’s Person of the Week to me via email.

THE PERSON OF THE WEEK, #4: DASHA SHLEYEVA

Dasha Shleyeva is 5’4” and a half. This week I sat at a table twice out on the front patio of the Bye and Bye with Dasha drawing her face, and a scuba man and some other people at other tables (I think I am going to draw the Person of the Week each week from here on out). The first time I used her color pencils, because I didn’t have any, and I had so much fun that I went to buy my own color pencils and then asked her if she wanted to meet up at the same table and draw again a few days later so we did. The first time I met Dasha, she was working as a barista at 26 Cafe. We started talking about poetry and she said she was then reading Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, and I was like OMG because I actually had Bluets in my bag at that exact time. I showed her and we were both like OMG! Of all the books! One time when I was home during winter break my mom and I were looking at my mom’s Facebook page together, and a Frontier Airlines ad on the side panel had Dasha’s face on it, like she was a very satisfied customer in some plane seat, with bright blue sky and clouds behind her. I told my mom casually that that was my friend Dasha, but I don’t think she really believed me. Or maybe it was Alaska Airlines. Dasha has also been a mummy on a Disney show, a girl scout on Mad TV, Amanda Bynes’ double on All That and a crazy fan extra on a Lindsay Lohan music video. Dasha is a very talented musician too, like way more talented than Lindsay Lohan. She plays bass for Brainstorm, and has been touring around the country with them lately. You can watch them play and talk about their music here. Dasha also has her own solo music projects, and she plays as Dashenka. You should check out her songs on her soundcloud page Dashenka Sings. Maybe you’ll want to watch her play at Laurelthirst Pub at 9:30 tomorrow night, May 9. Or if you miss that you can watch her play on May 31st at the Old Church downtown with a harpist and an upright bassist opening for Amento Abiento for Kind Arts Benefit for Low Income Seniors and Adults with Disabilities. She’ll be donating some of her prints for the silent auction. Oh, her prints! She is a visual artist too. You should check out some of her illustrations here on her website Dasha Draws. She has some of her prints for sale now around town at Tender Loving Empire, Townshend’s Tea House on Alberta, Compound Gallery, Wanderlust Vintage, and she will have a summer art show going up in July at Back Talk. Also THIS WEEK she made her first brass ring and bracelet at The Make House with Lauren of Revere Metals as her magical master teacher, she surfed some waves at Short Sands, and translated her first poem from English to Russian (which happens to be a poem of mine from Fjords called “What Would Kill Me”). Dasha was born in Moscow and lived there until she was 9 and is pretty much Russian-American, so she knows how to speak Russian. She is really good at cartwheels and does them a lot, mostly in hallways and movie theater lobbies. Her karaoke song is “It’s Oh So Quiet” by Bjork. She has a swan tattoo on her arm that makes me think of Bjork, but I’ve never asked her about that really. She apparently only drinks old man drinks like Sazeracs, Old Fashioneds, or a Whiskey soda with bitters and a lime, but I saw her drink a Rainier a few days ago. Anyway, because all of these things, especially because she has a solo show at Laurelthirst tomorrow, Dasha is this week’s Person of the Week.

Because Dasha spent a lot of time on the road with Brainstorm, she had to leave her job and is now looking for another in town. She’s up for barbacking, food service, music venue stuff, translating, nannying, restaurant or illustrative/art stuff. You should hit her up if you know of something. 

Please submit your suggestions for next week’s Person of the Week to me via email.

The first issue of a new online review called Hypothetical is now up, and in it is an excerpt from a long poem I’m working on called Agnes the Elephant, and some small excerpts from another thing I’m working on called Asteroid.

The first issue of a new online review called Hypothetical is now up, and in it is an excerpt from a long poem I’m working on called Agnes the Elephant, and some small excerpts from another thing I’m working on called Asteroid.

Today, Joseph Mains, Drew Swenhaugen and I are proud co-curators. LitBridge has announced that our poetry reading series, Bad Blood, is the winner of the 2013 LitBridge Best Reading Series Contest, a contest founded, formed, judged and organized by Melissa Burton, Dana Livermore and Erin Lynch. Bad Blood was chosen based on the number and quality of anonymous nominations (anonymations) submitted to the contest. It is becoming more and more clear to us that we are a part of a community that not only eagerly supports all of its reading series, including our own, but judging from some of these nominations, it is also clear that this communtiy feels as invested and responsible for Bad Blood’s success as Joseph, Drew and I do. Thank you anonymators. Thank you LitBridge.

Keeping it bad and bloody since 2010.

A very important, and much anticipated book of poems, Night is Simply a Shadow by Greta Wrolstad was published this week by the small independent local Portland poetry press, Tavern Books. I was lucky enough to meet Greta while I was living in Montana, when she was going to the University of Montana for her MFA. I only had a handful of conversations with her, the last of which was one where we were both tucked into the corner of a dark booth in Vancouver, BC, during AWP, with all our other Montana friends surrounding us. In 2005, Greta died from injuries sustained in a car crash. I didn’t know her very well, but some of the people I love most in this world have been deeply affected by her, and for that, and for this, her first and last full-length book of poems, I am thankful for her.  Buy Greta’s book straight from Tavern here.

A very important, and much anticipated book of poems, Night is Simply a Shadow by Greta Wrolstad was published this week by the small independent local Portland poetry press, Tavern Books. I was lucky enough to meet Greta while I was living in Montana, when she was going to the University of Montana for her MFA. I only had a handful of conversations with her, the last of which was one where we were both tucked into the corner of a dark booth in Vancouver, BC, during AWP, with all our other Montana friends surrounding us. In 2005, Greta died from injuries sustained in a car crash. I didn’t know her very well, but some of the people I love most in this world have been deeply affected by her, and for that, and for this, her first and last full-length book of poems, I am thankful for her. 

Buy Greta’s book straight from Tavern here.

THE PERSON OF THE WEEK, #3: JAMES GENDRON James Gendron is 5’11”. James’ other name is Jack. That’s what everybody I know calls him. His mom and his mom’s boyfriend, Tim, call him Jim though. It takes a little getting used to. Just a few months ago, I got to hang out with Jack, his mom and Tim in his childhood home in Portland, Maine, along with Amy Lawless and Mathias Svalina. Jack’s mom made us all beef stew, and made Mathias some spaghetti since he’s vegetarian (though he hated to be an imposition). She told us all stories about Jack as a boy which embarrassed him. We were there because Jack and Amy were all on a poetry tour together, and Mathias and I just did a couple of stops with them. Both Jack and Amy had poetry books on Octopus Books come out in March this year. Jack’s is called Sexual Boat (Sex Boats). Jack, Joseph Mains and I had a good time last fall meeting up and reading through all those poems out loud, editing them and making that book into an even better book. There is an official Portland Book Release party for it tonight, in fact, at Holocene, along with Joel Statz and Joanna Klink and some bands. The first time I ever really read Jack’s poems was a few years ago in a chapbook called Money Poems from Poor Claudia. They are so good, and it was always a treat hearing him read from them at different reading series’ around town. Jack teaches some classes pretty regularly for PSU, but he also has worked calling people for donations for the symphony, and slinging ice cream and pie and shit like that. One thing I usually tell other people about Jack is that he is sometimes a stand-up comedian, but I’ve never really seen him do stand-up comedy. I imagine it might be similar to hearing him read his poems. I’ve only heard that that stand-up comedy thing is true from our friend Derek (who has a crush on Jack’s mom). Sometimes Jack would invite me to Hilary’s, his girlfriend’s, pizza job for free slices of pizza. I probably shouldn’t say that. Because he is from New England, he roots for the Celtics. We watch basketball together, but I don’t like the Celtics. He sometimes takes care of Hilary’s sister’s cockatiel, Lowell, who likes to sing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and then take a crap. I mean, Lowell then takes a crap. Also, Jack’s birthday was this week, and he turned 31. Sometimes I think hanging out with Jack might be like what it would be like to hang out with one of the extras from a John Hughes film, one of the ones who walks around in the background in the airport scenes, or in the school hallway, but who is clearly far more interesting than the main characters doing all the dumb talking. Anyway, because of his birthday being this week, and his first official book release party being this week, James Gendron is this week’s Person of the Week. Pick up Jack’s Sexual Boat (Sex Boats) at Octopus Books, or at any local independent bookseller. Please submit your suggestions for next week’s Person of the Week to me via email.

THE PERSON OF THE WEEK, #3: JAMES GENDRON


James Gendron is 5’11”. James’ other name is Jack. That’s what everybody I know calls him. His mom and his mom’s boyfriend, Tim, call him Jim though. It takes a little getting used to. Just a few months ago, I got to hang out with Jack, his mom and Tim in his childhood home in Portland, Maine, along with Amy Lawless and Mathias Svalina. Jack’s mom made us all beef stew, and made Mathias some spaghetti since he’s vegetarian (though he hated to be an imposition). She told us all stories about Jack as a boy which embarrassed him. We were there because Jack and Amy were all on a poetry tour together, and Mathias and I just did a couple of stops with them. Both Jack and Amy had poetry books on Octopus Books come out in March this year. Jack’s is called Sexual Boat (Sex Boats). Jack, Joseph Mains and I had a good time last fall meeting up and reading through all those poems out loud, editing them and making that book into an even better book. There is an official Portland Book Release party for it tonight, in fact, at Holocene, along with Joel Statz and Joanna Klink and some bands. The first time I ever really read Jack’s poems was a few years ago in a chapbook called Money Poems from Poor Claudia. They are so good, and it was always a treat hearing him read from them at different reading series’ around town. Jack teaches some classes pretty regularly for PSU, but he also has worked calling people for donations for the symphony, and slinging ice cream and pie and shit like that. One thing I usually tell other people about Jack is that he is sometimes a stand-up comedian, but I’ve never really seen him do stand-up comedy. I imagine it might be similar to hearing him read his poems. I’ve only heard that that stand-up comedy thing is true from our friend Derek (who has a crush on Jack’s mom). Sometimes Jack would invite me to Hilary’s, his girlfriend’s, pizza job for free slices of pizza. I probably shouldn’t say that. Because he is from New England, he roots for the Celtics. We watch basketball together, but I don’t like the Celtics. He sometimes takes care of Hilary’s sister’s cockatiel, Lowell, who likes to sing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and then take a crap. I mean, Lowell then takes a crap. Also, Jack’s birthday was this week, and he turned 31. Sometimes I think hanging out with Jack might be like what it would be like to hang out with one of the extras from a John Hughes film, one of the ones who walks around in the background in the airport scenes, or in the school hallway, but who is clearly far more interesting than the main characters doing all the dumb talking. Anyway, because of his birthday being this week, and his first official book release party being this week, James Gendron is this week’s Person of the Week.

Pick up Jack’s Sexual Boat (Sex Boats) at Octopus Books, or at any local independent bookseller.

Please submit your suggestions for next week’s Person of the Week to me via email.

Last summer, I remember having a conversation at a little party at Will Bryant’s house with a designer friend, Adam Garcia, about certain interesting etymologies, and he started talking about how it’d be fun to illustrate some of those etymologies. Just yesterday, I learned that Adam actually did something with that idea. Check out his website of Illustrated Etymologies, a collection of illustrated etymologies by a variety of different artists. The above illustration, Cataract, is one of Adam’s own illustrations.

Last summer, I remember having a conversation at a little party at Will Bryant’s house with a designer friend, Adam Garcia, about certain interesting etymologies, and he started talking about how it’d be fun to illustrate some of those etymologies. Just yesterday, I learned that Adam actually did something with that idea. Check out his website of Illustrated Etymologies, a collection of illustrated etymologies by a variety of different artists. The above illustration, Cataract, is one of Adam’s own illustrations.

The first poems of Wong May’s published in over 25 years now appear in PEN Poetry Series, selected by guest editor C.D. Wright. Almost ten years ago, I stumbled upon Wong May’s first book of poems, A Bad Girl’s Book of Animals in the public library in Akron, OH, and having never before heard of her, and unable to find any information about her written after 1978, I wrote a Recovery Project in Octopus Magazine #3. Unlike what I said in that recovery project, Wong May has in fact not disappeared. Octopus Books will publish Wong May’s first book of poems since her last was published in 1978. It will be edited by myself and Brandon Shimoda, and it is called Picasso’s Tears. Wong May was born in Mainland China and raised in Singapore, where she obtained an English degree from the University of Singapore before attending the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. She is the author of A Bad Girl’s Book of Animals (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich,1969), Reports (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1972), Superstitions (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1978), and the forthcoming Picasso’s Tears (Octopus Books). She now lives in Ireland. Read four of Wong May’s new poems, and what C.D. Wright has to say about them here.

The first poems of Wong May’s published in over 25 years now appear in PEN Poetry Series, selected by guest editor C.D. Wright.

Almost ten years ago, I stumbled upon Wong May’s first book of poems, A Bad Girl’s Book of Animals in the public library in Akron, OH, and having never before heard of her, and unable to find any information about her written after 1978, I wrote a Recovery Project in Octopus Magazine #3. Unlike what I said in that recovery project, Wong May has in fact not disappeared. Octopus Books will publish Wong May’s first book of poems since her last was published in 1978. It will be edited by myself and Brandon Shimoda, and it is called Picasso’s Tears.


Wong May was born in Mainland China and raised in Singapore, where she obtained an English degree from the University of Singapore before attending the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. She is the author of A Bad Girl’s Book of Animals (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich,1969), Reports (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1972), Superstitions (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1978), and the forthcoming Picasso’s Tears (Octopus Books). She now lives in Ireland.

Read four of Wong May’s new poems, and what C.D. Wright has to say about them here.

If you live in Portland, let me remind you to get your Octopus Books from the good guys—from Backtalk (pictured above), Division Leap, Reading Frenzy (you can support their attempt to relaunch through Kickstarter now), and Powell’s. Or come to this Wednesday night and stock up with the rock up. 

If you live in Portland, let me remind you to get your Octopus Books from the good guys—from Backtalk (pictured above), Division Leap, Reading Frenzy (you can support their attempt to relaunch through Kickstarter now), and Powell’s. Or come to this Wednesday night and stock up with the rock up. 

Kelly Schirmann and I are going to start a little project, one in which I write poems and she makes songs with those words. I’ll make a little book and she’ll make a little record. For practice, Kelly made a song out of a poem I’ve already written, which appears in Fjords vol. 1, called “Hands.” Kelly is the singer in Young Family, and writes poems that you can read, like here in Illuminati Girl Gang and here in Spork.


HANDS

Four red hands float in the shittiness. The air is giving out. Horses jump over us, their hooves denting in our heads. When we look down, we do not have our hands. They’ve been replaced by something we’ve come to recognize as our parents.